{"id":15590,"date":"2023-10-05T15:13:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T14:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=15590"},"modified":"2023-10-05T15:13:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T14:13:54","slug":"bliain-an-air-the-year-of-slaughter-1740-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2023\/10\/05\/bliain-an-air-the-year-of-slaughter-1740-41\/","title":{"rendered":"Bliain an \u00c1ir – ‘The year of slaughter’ 1740-41"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bliain an \u00c1ir <\/b><\/span>
\n\u2018The Year of Slaughter\u2019, 1740-41
\n<\/i><\/span>
\nAround the earth, a warring, wooden sea of brigs <\/span>
\nwas bristling, a-flame; volcanic ash<\/span>
\ndescending on the vacillating map. The weathered world<\/span>
\nbegan to shift \u2013 a tiny alteration <\/span>
\nsowing ice across the land. The shining-bellied geese <\/span>
\nno longer wintered by the lough. The turf-blue river <\/span>
\nwaters died. An iron frost persisted, all the spring, <\/span>
\nwithout a rain, the blooming yearly crop undone \u2013 <\/span>
\nin every rill and valley, sick. The factious common people <\/span>
\nroared in protestation; then dwindled down, masticating <\/span>
\nslowly, like a herd, on sour, curdled soup and sallow greens:<\/span>
\na meal of nettle stems and charlock \u2013 the lush, <\/span>
\ngreen-leafed, light-golden-flowered thing that grows <\/span>
\namong the grass. The lark-lit summer moors
\n<\/span>were blank; the meadow-birds aghast. No longer<\/span>
\nhaving feed to give, the grieving poor death-rattled <\/span>
\nin the fields, as the little cows they tended fell. <\/span>
\nLike rotten sheep themselves, after supping <\/span>
\ndead potatoes in distress, whole parishes surrendered, <\/span>
\npassing out, in fever-thin delirium, to waste <\/span>
\nand bloody flux: a plague of desperation, day by day. <\/span>
\nTown and city quickly filled with remnants of the living.<\/span>
\nThe census-takers floundered; swelling ditches overflowed.<\/span>
\nTo put an end to expiration, the famous bishop<\/span>
\nbrewed a broth: a medicine made up of milk <\/span>
\nand boiling water, with a sprinkling of chalk \u2013 <\/span>
\nto be dispensed among the stricken, till the ague settled down.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Feature Image: gravestone in Coolaghmore, county Kilkenny of the Lee family, of whom three members died in 1741\u201342.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bliain an \u00c1ir \u2018The Year of Slaughter\u2019, 1740-41 Around the earth, a warring, wooden sea of brigs was bristling, a-flame; volcanic ash descending on the vacillating map. The weathered world began to shift \u2013 a tiny alteration sowing ice across the land. The shining-bellied geese no longer wintered by the lough. The turf-blue river waters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":15591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[162,352,1028,1688,1690,1691,1696,3181,3392,4488,7300,7341,7344,8448,8922,10249],"class_list":["post-15590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-1740-41","tag-air","tag-bliain","tag-ciaran-orourke-cassandra-voices","tag-ciaran-orourke-poet","tag-ciaran-orourke-poetry","tag-ciaran-orourke-irish-poet","tag-famine-year-of-the-slaughter","tag-food","tag-irelands-forgotten-famine","tag-poem-about-1740-41-famine","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-about-famine-of-1740-41","tag-slaughter","tag-the","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}